Health insurance policy that will protect your extended family

WPA policy means different generations can be covered on a single private medical insurance policy.

Health insurer WPA has launched a new form of health insurance that won’t just protect you, but your extended family as well.

The Multi-Family Healthcare Plan allows you to cover as many family members as you want, so long as you are related by blood, marriage, civil partnership, cohabitation, adoption or fostering. There’s no upper age limit either.

The idea is that, by pooling the family together, the policy works out cheaper than if each member was to take out a separate policy alone.

One slight complication is there must be at least two different contacts at different addresses to qualify for the plan. So, for example, if you just want cover for you, your partner and your children, then you won’t qualify while they live at home, but you will qualify if they have grown up and moved out.

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What’s covered

There are three levels of cover: Standard, Enhanced and Comprehensive. All three levels cover things like hospital treatment (you can choose from over 600 hospitals), specialists’ fees, diagnostic scans and out-patient procedures.

The main differences with the Enhanced and Comprehensive packages are more support for consultations, tests and various forms of therapy.

For example, with the Standard package there is £150 of cover for specialist consultations and tests. This jumps to £500 on the Enhanced package and is unlimited on the Comprehensive package.

You can specify a different level of cover for each different family member.

What does it cost?

The cost of your plan depends on a number of factors, including the age of the different applicants, where they live, what level of cover they go for and the co-payment level (rather than an excess, WPA employs Shared Responsibility, where you pay a share of any treatment costs up to a certain level).

To give you an idea of how much the Multi-Family Plan costs, I got a quote for a policy covering two households: a mother and father, both aged 30, with four- and one-year-old children, as well as grandparents, both aged 60.

For a Standard level of cover, with a £500 co-payment limit, the Multi-Family Plan would cost £144.13 a month. It’s worth noting that the second oldest person in each household gets free cover for the first year, so in 12 months’ time that quote would jump by more than £100 a month.

Bump that cover up to Enhanced, and you’ll be looking at £178.84 a month (thanks to a £149 monthly discount for the first year), while Comprehensive will cost £279.04 a month (thanks a £233 monthly discount for the first year).

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Insuring your family

Most health insurance policies will allow you to add your partner and children to your policy.

Indeed, some insurers will offer free cover for your children. For example, if you take out a policy for yourself and your eldest child with Aviva, all subsequent children will be covered for free.

Paying less for your health insurance

If you’re looking for a private medical insurance policy, there are plenty of things you can do to ensure you don’t pay through the nose for your cover.

These range from the simple, like shopping around to compare quotes, to tweaking exactly which hospitals you can get treatment from. There are plenty of tips in our guide How to pay less for private medical insurance.

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